I like to think I’m something of a funny guy. I once won fourth place in a comedy contest in college, and the guy who won second place plagiarized Stephen Wright. So really I did pretty well. Don’t ask how many people competed.

Science is actually a pretty wealthy hunting ground for humor. The Big Bang Theory is still slaying me when I watch it, and sometimes they put in jokes you kinda have to be a scientist or a geek to get.

* one to measure it’s black body radiation at room temperature to verify it is totally dead.
* one to lobby government for money to buy another one.
* one to write the environmental impact statement.
* one to record the steps taken during the change, for later publication in
Scientific American.
* one to shell out the money for a new one, because the government turned you down.

Actually, one of the funniest things I read today was an error in an astronomy news article. I hope it gets fixed soon, but http://www.physorg.com/news153070017.html refers to a comet in our own solar system having a “Jupiter-sized atmosphere”. Personally I think that if comets can have Jupiter-sized atmospheres then we are all in a great deal of trouble, but I’m not sure what they meant to say.

I too have immense difficulty telling the spherical cow joke. I get to the punchline and it’s always dead silence. I’m beginning to think the only people that laugh are people that have heard it before.

A comedian talking about physics isn’t so new here in Germany: for about 10 years now, we have Vince Ebert here, a physicist doing comedy. One of his shows was e. g. called “Physics is sexy”, and in it, he calculated the speed of ejaculation using Newton’s laws. And the audience liked it very much – although he used several formulas! If you are interested: several videos of his performance are up on YouTube – but you should understand German… 😉

I love science and math based jokes, just shows how much of a nerd and/or a geek I truly am 😛 One of my friends is actually teaching maths at a Uni, so at least I have someone who appreciates them (I will have to send him the polar bear one to him).

One of my favourite math jokes has to be this one:

Two explorers are wandering through the scrub, when they come across a clearing with a huge altar in the middle. On this alter is a circle made of stone, and surrounding it are a bunch of people, all praying to the circle.

Carefully, the explorers creep closer trying to hear what is being chanted. They eventually make it out – “Nulllll… Nulllll… Nulllll…” repeated over and over.

One explorer looks at the other in shock – “Is nothing sacred to these people?”

A Proton and an Electron are in a pub, drinking beer and having a chinwag. Then, a Neutron rolls in, sits at the bar and orders a beer. The Proton and the Electron watch the Neutron, attentively, as he drinks his beer and then leaves the bar without paying.

“Hey, barman!”, exclaimed the Proton, “How come he did not have to pay for his beer, but we do?”

5) What would be the favourite musical style of the inhabitants of Alpha Aurigae?

SCROLL DOWN …

…& KEEP SCROLLING

… & again

Okay :

1) RU Lupi *

2) K0 (Kay Oh as in knock out!)

3) B0 as in B. O.

4) B4 – the “after” photos always beat the “B4” ones .. 😉

5) Acapella (A-capella! Sorry … 😉 ..)

* Yes that _is_ a real star! 😉 RU Lupi (“are you loopy!?”) is a variable -an RW Aurigae or T-Tauri type nebular variable in Lupus. Probably a young star still in the process of accreting material it varies irregularly from 9th to 13th magnitude and is, probably, a G5 dwarf star located (again, most likely) around 400 light-years away.

The Historical Society regrets to inform its members that tonight’s Black Death Re-enactment is cancelled due to illness. 😉

Its always darkest just before the dawn – so if you’re going to steal your neighbours newspaper that’s the time to do it!
– Yoga Maharishi Fattibastard (Check source?!)

Thought for the day : Does a bracket after an emoticon give it’s face a double chin??? 😉

Thought for the day : If they ever make a TV show called ‘Parasite’, will they still call its compere a ‘host’?

Thought for the day : Are garbos at our disposal?

Thought for the day : Has the word ‘passe’ (en Francais) now become itself? (Or passed away?)

Thought for the day : If the Moon really was made from green cheese then we’d really be grateful for the vacuum of space because, well, can you imagine just how bad a moon sized lump of really old, really mouldy cheese might smell?! 😉

Thought for the day : Is it “better Late than never” if Late = deceased?

Patrick Moore’s Personal Apocalpyse tale :
“A few years ago I was walking along Charing Cross Road in Central London when I came across a man who was wearing sandwich boards. Normally I would’ve paid little attention to him and I assumed he must have been protesting about something quite mundane but in fact his message was much more dramatic :

“Sinners Repent! The hour of doom is at hand!”

I was tempted to question him but at that moment he stepped off the kerb and was smartly knocked down by a passing cyclist.

Rising to his feet he drew a deep breath and unleashed a volley of wild invective.”
– Page 1, introduction, “Countdown – Or how Nigh is the End?”, Patrick Moore, Pan Books, 1999.

***

Would the congregation please note that the bowl at the back of the Church labelled ‘For the sick’ is for monetary donations only.’
– Apparently a real church sign.

We apologise for the error in the last edition in which we stated that Mr Fred Nicolme is a defective of the police force. This was a typographical error. We meant, of course, that Mr Nicolme is a detective in the police farce.
– ‘Derby Community newspaper’ (Other info. unavailable.)

Minimalist art: The less said the better.

Apollodorus : “O Socrates how it grieves me to see you die so undeservedly.”
Socrates : “My dear Apollodorus, would you rather see me die deservedly?”

A teacher and a school inspector were feuding over something and the teacher, being cheeky, wrote on the chalkboard the following line:
The teacher said “the Inspector is a fool.”
The inspector saw this, smiled and quickly changed the punctuation, quotes marks and commas to read:
‘The teacher’, said the Inspector,’ is a fool.’
So commas misplaced, word order reversed
Can make writer object
Shout, swear & curse!

***

Continuity: Subtitling and translation can also lead to weird mistakes. Han Solo says (twice in the special edition) that he dumped his cargo because “Even I get boarded sometimes”, and in Dutch cinema’s the subtitles read as if he said “Even I get bored sometimes”.

I hope its not too much of a faux pas to post this on both these threads. Just in case people miss it on the other one.

Who doesn’t? 😉 very, very few people think of themselves as being humourless – the lack of a sense of humour is a trait most frequently found in a fanatic or zealot.

Natch what constitutes humour & “being funny” (comic funny that is) varies widely from culture to culture and even person to person. 😉

Still most of us claim a GSOH to use the common acronymn and many even claim humour is what separates us from animals and makes us human – Heinlein made a case for this, I think, in his classic ‘Stranger in a Strange Land.’

Which is all stating the obvious to some degree but whatever. Enough philosophy! Lets bring on the jokes! 😀

My physics professor was making the point that axis labels are totally arbitrary, and they don’t need to be positive x to the right, et cetera.

He said “you can call this the positive Bill direction, and this the…” then he draws two concentric circles. “I don’t even know what this is.” He puts dots in it. “Here, you can call this the sprinkled donut direction. So, we developed the unit vector “Sprinkled donut hat” that day.

Hmm .. Even the Bad Astronomer himself likes the odd fart joke I noticed … 😉

As galaxies pass through it, the pressure from this gas pushes on the gas inside the galaxy, sweeping it out (like driving with your windows open removes bad odors lingering in your car, possibly also due to gas).

From the “Face of Beauty” (spiral galaxy image) thread.

So I’m NOT the only one whose sense of humour tends toward the toilet variety here … 😉